Audience IQ
Stop guessing and start knowing.
Audience IQ uses AI-powered focus groups to test messaging, positioning, campaign concepts and brand perceptions before you invest in execution.
You’ll learn what resonates, what doesn’t, and what to do next.
Better decisions start with better insight.
Organizations shouldn’t have to rely on instinct alone when making important marketing and communications decisions.Audience IQ helps test ideas, messages, and strategies with scenario-aware, custom-built AI audiences before launch, providing fast, actionable insights into how consumers, audiences, and key stakeholders are likely to respond.
Powered by SmartFocus.ai and guided by The Pollack Group, Audience IQ combines advanced AI research technology with expert analysis to help organizations make smarter decisions with greater confidence.
Four Simple Steps
01
Define the challenge
Tell us what you want to test.
02
Build the audience
We create custom audience panels based on the people you want to reach.
03
Run the session
An AI-moderated focus group explores reactions, objections and opportunities.
04
Get recommendations
Receive a structured, presentation-ready report and a Pollack Group strategy recommendation that translates the findings directly into messaging, content, positioning, or campaign direction.
What You Can Test
Audience insight for virtually any business challenge.
- Brand positioning
- Corporate messaging
- Campaign concepts
- Product launches
- Competitive differentiation
- Website messaging
- Thought leadership
- PR narratives
- Customer trust
- Crisis scenarios
- Marketing activations
The difference is what we do with it
Because our agency president co-founded SmartFocus.ai, we bring an unmatched combination of platform expertise, strategic thinking, and hands-on configuration that turns AI-powered research into meaningful business insights.
We don’t just deliver a report. We help turn audience feedback into stronger messaging, better campaigns and smarter business decisions.
Flexible ways to get started
Insight Session
One audience. One challenge. Fast answers.
Positioning Sprint
Multiple sessions to evaluate messaging and market positioning.
Intelligence Retainer
Ongoing audience intelligence and strategic guidance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Audience IQ pairs well with many of The Pollack Group’s solutions, providing audience insights that help inform messaging, communications strategies, campaigns, and other engagement programs.
Organizations can test assumptions before they become expensive decisions. Whether you’re launching a campaign, refining messaging, introducing a product, or navigating a reputational challenge, Audience IQ reveals how your target audience is likely to respond, and why.
Examples include:
- Which message is most likely to resonate with our target audience?
- What objections are preventing people from buying or engaging?
- How is our brand currently perceived in the market?
- Which campaign concept is most compelling?
- What differentiates us from competitors in the minds of customers?
- How would audiences react to a new product, service, or announcement?
- What trust barriers exist and how can we overcome them?
A single session runs in 45–60 minutes, with a structured report delivered the same day. More involved sessions deliver client-ready recommendations within a week.
Yes. AI-moderated focus groups are an effective way to test messages, explore audience reactions, identify potential objections, and evaluate concepts before launch. They deliver fast, cost-effective insights that help inform strategic decisions and reduce risk.
Audience IQ is not a generative AI chatbot. Platforms like Claude and ChatGPT have the ability to create data-driven audience personas and proto-personas, but no way to validate data based on tangible situations and actual occurrences. They can suggest different prompts to generate personas and validate data, but that’s where it ends.
Audience IQ leverages scenario- aware audience personas that uncover precisely what companies and organizations need to make informed business decisions in real-time.
CrossFit
Triggering purchases from parents
CrossFit, one of the world’s most popular and effective training programs for improving health and performance, conducted an Audience IQ study to better understand what prevents people from trying CrossFit for the first time. The research tested a variety of messages and found that prospective members are less concerned about injury or fitness level, and more concerned about fitting in and receiving proper coaching. The findings are helping CrossFit refine its communications strategy to better address the needs and concerns of first-time participants.
Solutions
Some communications challenges call for a more focused approach. The Pollack Group’s proprietary solutions combine decades of communications experience with specialized methodologies, technology and audience intelligence to help organizations solve specific business and reputation challenges. From strengthening messaging and preparing for a crisis to understanding audiences, elevating leaders and measuring how brands appear in AI-driven search, our solutions give organizations practical tools and insights they can put to work.
Connect to Lead
Thread it with what we already do
Activate Now
Prioritize the influencers and sources of credibility your target audience trusts, now confirmed by research.
Leadership Now
Creating leadership platforms that are essential to building audience trust and confidence.
Activate Now
Prioritize the influencers and sources of credibility your target audience trusts, now confirmed by research.